The average Brit is now spending at least £89 a year through apps made available by consumer brands – a year-on-year increase of 24%, according to new research.
This figure (of £89) combined with data on the level of smart device ownership suggests that the app ‘channel’ is now worth £4.04 billion a year to brands in the UK.
In total, this means that spending through apps now accounts for 0.3% of total UK consumption. The dramatic figures were revealed in a report released earlier today by Conjure—a company that specialises in building apps and systems based on emerging technologies for brands.
Conjure’s Apps and Brands Benchmark 2015, based on a nationally representative survey of 2,000 Brits conducted by OnePoll, reveals that the average Brit spends £89 per year through brands’ apps, while Apple devotees are more ‘valuable’ than their Android counterparts.
Brits who only use iOS are now spending an average of £89.36 through brands’ apps, whereas those Brits solely plugged into the Android ecosystem are only spending an average of £62.80 – a difference of £26.56 – or 29.7%.
The Conjure report reveals that the number of brands’ apps downloaded by the average Brit is not really increasing at the moment (the average only went up from 5.5 to 5.9 year-on-year).
However, 1 in 4 Brits (24.6%) is now spending more time than ever before ‘in’ the apps made available by brands. Almost 1 in 3 of those polled (29.5%) said that the amount of time they spent using apps released by brands had not increased – but had held steady year-on-year.
The survey at the heart of the Apps and Brands Benchmark indicated that bothersome notifications are the number one reason consumers abandon apps put out by brands; almost 1 in 3 respondents who aren’t spending as much time using apps put out by consumer brands blame ‘repetitive or irrelevant’ notifications for their lack of engagement. 1 in 5 respondents (21%) from the same group said the diminishing of the buzz around apps had seen their own interest fade.
On the other hand, 16.4% of those not spending as much time as they used to engaging with brands through their mobile devices said it was because those brands weren’t doing anything interesting or innovative with their apps any more.
Sam Clark, Founder of Conjure, commented: “The process of buying a good or service through an app has become normalised. When it comes to putting their credit details into an app most Brits no longer have the fear factor, and most brands realise they need to have an ‘app window on the world’. That said, brands can’t afford to get complacent – they’ve got to have a content strategy mapped out in advance, be ready to update their apps with innovative new features at least once every six months, and promote their apps as forcefully as possible through their other marketing channels. Most importantly, brands have got to listen to their customers when it comes to things like notifications – if they fail to do that they will almost certainly have their apps uninstalled before they’ve had a chance to shine.”
OnePoll surveyed 2,000 British adults on behalf of Conjure. Fieldwork took place from 18.11.14 – 21.11.14.